Chinese pork safer after toxic feed additive crackdown

According to China's Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) more of the country's meat products are free of clenbuterol, an illegal fat-burning drug that is sometimes used as an additive in pig feed, as a result of China's four-month crackdown on the usage of the additive.

The MOA claims that 99.3% of the China's animal products passed the ministry's second-quarter tests of clenbuterol content, the best level recorded since 2001.

Over 980 suspects were arrested in a national crackdown on the manufacture and sale of clenbuterol, which is banned as a food additive because of its toxic attributes, the MOA said.

The campaign was launched in April after the Shuanghui Group, China's largest meat processing company, was found to be purchasing pigs that had been fed with feed contaminated with clenbuterol. During the campaign, 2.5 metric tons of clenbuterol and 5.9 metric tons of meat containing clenbuterol were confiscated, according to the MOA.